In recent years, microtitration wells have assumed an important role in many biological and biochemical applications, such as sample preparation, genome sequencing, and drug discovery programs. A variety of multi-well arrangements, constructed according to standardized formats, are now popular. Methods of heating samples in such multi-well arrangements, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,459,300 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,492, are known in the art, but do not perform consistent, uniform heating of all samples in a multi-sample array.
It is desirable to provide an apparatus for consistently and uniformly maintaining, raising, or lowering the temperature of a plurality of samples, to facilitate processing such as purification.